,5*7 



\ 



SPEECH 

OF 

LORD CAMPBELL, 

IN THE 

HOUSE OF LORDS, 

ON THE 

EIGHT OF THE NEUTEAL POWERS TO ACKNOWLEDGE 
THE SOUTHERN CONFEDEEACY, 

MAECH 23rd, 1863.. 



LONDON : 

JAMES EIDGWAY, 169, PICCADILLY. 
1863. 



S3<? 



Nassau Steam Press— W. S. Johnson & Co., 60, St. Martin's Lane, Charing Cross, W.C. 




SPEECH OF LORD CAMPBELL. 



Loud Campbell, in rising to call attention to the ques- 
tion of acknowledging the Southern Confederacy as an 
independent Power, in concert with other neutral States, and 
to the Despatches of Mr. Mason, the Southern Envoy, on 
the subject, said : My Lords, although I know that no 
apology is requisite for calling the attention of the House to 
the papers for which I moved in August last, and which 
have lately been presented, I am anxious and impatient to 
point out the exact view with which the Motion is submitted 
to you. It is not in order to raise a question on the course 
which Government have taken as regards American affairs 
during the autumn. The question I propose is wholly 
seated in the future. The facts which lead to it are known 
and easy to recall to you. During the whole of the last 
Session, France and Great Britain were alleged, and were 
believed, to act together on the difficulties which the civil 
war gave rise to. Since then, they have diverged, or rather 
in the memorable phrase of a noble Friend, now absent 
from his place,"' although their objects are the same, 
have seemed to drift from one another. In November, 
we restrained the French Government in a course which 
they desired to take ; in J anuary, the Emperor by himself 
pursued a second line of action, meant, like the first, to ter- 
minate hostilities. That line of action having failed, all 
thoughts of intervention, mediation, and remonstrance being 
exploded by the insolent reply of Mr. Seward : the Emperor 
being anxious still to close the war, as he has proved himself, 



The Earl of Clarendon. 
A 2 



4 



and having paid to the Government of Washington, every 
debt of justice and of courtesy : the question of recognising 
the insurgent may at any moment come before us, as the 
question of attempting to obtain an armistice was urged 
upon the country in November. Were it not that, for some 
weeks past, Poland has engaged the world, before now it 
might have reached us. As things stand, it would find us 
in the worst condition to receive it, without conviction one 
way or the other, in either party of the State by the avowal 
of their leaders.* A fatal error might arise, not from a 
mistaken but an hesitating judgment. It is at such a moment, 
if ever, that Parliamentary debate is useful and admissible ; 
when of two opposite opinions on a question rapidly impen- 
ding, neither can be said to prevail over the other, and no 
man on earth foresees by which our conduct will be guided. 
It is, therefore, to contribute to a practical result, that I have 
given noble Lords the opportunity of speaking on America. 
And it could not have been done in any other form, because 
a Resolution or Address to pledge the action of the Govern- 
ment would have justly been resisted ; and its withdrawal 
or defeat would prejudice the 8,000,000 men whose claims 
are now before you. 

The opinion I am anxious to maintain is, that the diver- 
gence of France and Great Britain on America, ought not 
to go further, but to cease ; and that when France invites us 
to acknowledge Southern independence, we should neither 
hold her back, nor let her move alone, but on the contrary, 
act with her. And by acknowledgment, I mean the course 
of sending an Ambassador to the insurgent, or of receiving 
his Ambassador, or of engaging in a treaty with him, or of 
seeking exequaturs from him for the consuls in his territory. 



* See Speech of Lord Derby in the House of Lords, February 5th, 
and various addresses out of doors, during the autumn, by different 
Members of the Cabinet. 



5 



The first impression I should wish to combat very briefly is, 
that the acknowledgment by neutral States of Southern in- 
dependence would have no practical effects, and no impor- 
tant consequences. It seemed to be that of a noble Earl 
over the way, who lately held the Foreign seals, at the 
beginning of the Session.* But if acknowledgment is 
wholly immaterial, why has the South continued to 
demand, and the North so long and pertinaciously 
endeavoured to avert it ? Why are Southern Envoys 
now in London and in Paris, and why was the Govern- 
ment of Washington prepared at every cost, but that of 
war, to intercept them? Why have the Envoys, on 
arriving, made acknowledgment the simple object of their 
mission, and why has Mr. Seward sent to the different 
Powers a volume of despatches to resist it ? It has reached 
me from credible authorities that last year the planters began 
to grow cotton when acknowledgment was looked for, and 
ploughed it in when the hope expired. It happened in this 
manner. The planters viewed acknowledgment as the road 
to peace, and were ready to invest their capital in the 
ordinary way when that road was likely to be opened. -And 
it may well occur to them as having such a tendency From 
the Northern mind it would take away the hope which 
lingers yet of Southern subjugation. From the Government 
of Washington it would take away the power of describing 
eleven communities contending for their liberty as rebels. 
The people of America are influenced by phrases, and will 
not come to terms with what they have been hounded on to 
look at as rebellion. But they can see a fact when Europe 
blazons it before them, and they may be awakened by her 
judgment to the nature of the foreign war on which their 
treasure and their happiness are wasted. When Europe has 
acknowledged it, the independence of the South may be 



* Earl of Malmesbury. 



6 



debated in the Senate and the House, where no one now 
can venture to advert to it. A probable result of such a 
measure, if pursued by France, Great Britain, and other 
neutral States together, is, that it would weaken in the 
Executive at Washington its borrowing ability, because 
their loans are founded on the chances of re -conquest ; and 
re-conquest would then appear what it is, a shadow and a 
dream. And it would do so with good reason. Victorious 
already, animated then, the Southern armies would be doubly 
irresistible.* They would not have, if they retain it now, 
the power to be vanquished. Another practical effect of 
recognition — the belligerents might then endeavour to nego- 
ciate, which it is clear they cannot do at present. A separate 
result would be to put an end to all the idle views of recon- 
struction and of union which are floating in America, and 
which serve to prolong the war, because they disincline the 
North to the only basis upon which the close of it is possible. 
A yet more serious result the measure promises is freedom 
to the Government of Washington from the necessity of 
hopeless war, which weighs on it at present. As soon 
as Europe sanctions its retreat, the greater portion 
of its evils are annihilated. As long as Europe sanc- 
tions its attempt, to renounce it is to suffer an indignity 
which never fell upon a State engaged in war with in- 
surrection since modern history opened its varied scenes 
to our notice, Noble Lords who recollect how, after 
it had lasted forty years, the civil war between Spain and 
Holland was influenced in 1607-9 by the diplomacy of France 
and England, may be led to think in what form the present 
struggle might adjust itself. But they will also see that the 
efforts of the two Powers would have been as vain as they 
were brilliant and successful, unless Europe had before ac- 



* An opinion founded upon conversations with Southern officers who 
had lately been in action. 



7 



knowleged the insurgent. I will not dwell upon the instance. 
It must engage the study of every Minister or Sovereign 
who aspires to the lofty task of closing the hostilities before 
us. And if I, wanting power to go on, should do nothing 
more than point to it to-night, the motion might not be a 1 
useless one.* 

If noble Lords are not entirely satisfied as to the practical 
effects which lecognition tends to, let me refer them to the 
despatch of Mr. Mason to the Secretary of State, dated 
August 1, in No. 2 of the papers lately given. He treats 
the point with that knowledge of the country, and the war 
itself, which must give weight to his expressions. The next 
doctrine, which stands in the way of the conclusion I am 
pointing to, is even more important to consider, because in 
this House it received a kind of sanction on February 5 
from the noble Earl who leads the Opposition,f and who had 
the manliness to state that in espousing it he differed from 
the mass of his supporters. It has been laid down that you 
should recognise insurgent Powers only when you are going to 
give material assistance to their cause, or when the civil war 
is over ; — that neutrals should reserve their voice, until arms 
have fallen from the weak and fainting hands of the belli- 
gerents. Whether or not such ought to be the principle, it 
is not, as examples show, that on which the Powers of either 
world have generally acted. So far from the cessation of 
hostilities preceding the acknowledgment of neutrals, the 
acknowledgment of neutrals has, in nearly every case, pre- 
ceded the cessation of hostilities. In combating this tenet, 
no doubt the cases of Belgium, under Lord Grey, Greece, 
under the Duke of Wellington, Holland under Queen Eliza- 
beth, ought to be excluded, because in all three, material 



* An adequate account of this remarkable transaction will be found 
in Watson's History of Philip III., Book iii., drawn from Bentivoglio 
and Grotius. 

t The Earl of Derby. 



8 



support and diplomatic intercourse were blended. But the 
United States acknowledged Nicaragua, under Walker, be- 
fore hostilities had ceased to menace the existence of his 
Government. They acknowledged the South American 
Republics rising against Spain before the effort to reduce 
them was exhausted. When Colonel Mann was sent by the 
Government of Washington to Hungary, in 1848-9, he was 
instructed to acknowledge the seceding kingdom, not when 
hostilities had ceased, but when its independence could be 
counted on ; and he reserved the voice he was invested with, 
not because he was controlled by the presence of Austrian 
troops, but by the chances — and he reasoned well — of the 
insurgents being reconquered.* He did not find a settled, 
but a migratory Government, which fled from post to post, 
instead of meeting the invaders at its capital. But if we 
pass to Europe, France acknowledged the United States re- 
volting against England before Lord North renounced his 
efforts to subdue them. It is idle to assert that Lord North 
engaged in war on such a provocation. All who read the 
memorandum drawn up by Mr. Gibbon for the Govern- 
ment, and do not fancy themselves better versed than him 
in the opinions of the statesmen who instructed him, know 
that Lord North began war with France on a different pro- 
vocation. And what if he did not ? Is Lord North, after 
he had marred his reputation by a civil war, which all the 
men who formed the glory of that epoch denounced as 
wicked and demented, to be held up as a master of public 
law, and an oracle on international proceedings ? Is the 



* A statement, founded upon conversations with Colonel Mann, 
and wholly inconsistent with the common error that the United 
States did acknowledge Hungary. The illustration is one of acknow- 
ledgment judiciously withheld, and not of acknowledgment preci- 
pitately granted. It establishes the principle which had swayed 
the Cabinets of Washington, either in withholding or in granting it, 
as identical with that which is afterwards defended in the speech. 



9 



Minister of the day, no matter what may be his character, 
or what may be his errors, virtute officii an heir to the 
authority of Bynkershoek or Grotius ? So much for 
France. Great Britain, it is said, upon the other hand, 
was tardy in acknowledging the South American repub- 
lics. But that tardiness was reprobated by a brilliant 
and enlightened Opposition, of which the noble Lord the 
Secretary of State was not an inconsiderable ornament. And 
that tardiness was partially imposed by a generous regard 
for Spain, invaded as she was in 1823. It was justified, 
moreover, by the hazard of breaking with the great allies 
with whom, long after 1815, we had been acting, to whom, 
in 1823, France had become subservient, and who viewed 
the cause of the South American republics with aversion.* 
The noble Lord the President of the Council, well versed in 
the career of Mr. Canning, at that time the Foreign Secre- 
tary, cannot have forgotten, that in that particular transac- 
tion, to acknowledge the insurgents was to brave the greater 
portion of the world ; that the despotic Powers made it 
almost a personal affair ; that neither public law nor abstract 
rules, but special facts, and policy and prudence, at once 
delayed and fixed the hour of acknowledgment. The next 
and last example I shall give will make me independent of 
the others I have mentioned. It surpasses all the rest in 
magnitude and clearness ; it tallies with the question now 
before the world in nearly every point, and it is one in 
which not a single State, but Europe may be said to have 
delivered — and that in times far more monarchical, and 
therefore more averse to revolution than our own — a judg- 
ment on the question of acknowledgment. Great Britain, 
France, Sweden^Holland, all formed treaties with Portugal, 
seceding from the rule of Spain in 1641, a year after the 



* See " George Canning and His Times," by Mr. Stapleton, for a 
detailed account of the transaction founded upon Mr. Canning's letters. 



10 



Duke and Duchess of Braganza had proclaimed its indepen- 
dence, a quarter of a century before the Crown of Spain 
resolved to acquiesce in it.* At that time Prussia had not 
come into existence as a State. Russia had not begun to 
mingle in the politics of Europe. f Austria was attached to 
Spain by ties of family, and therefore the four recognising 
States may be fairly said to have composed a general tribunal 
of the Continent. So far from having ceased, the Spanish 
effort to reconquer by intrigue, conspiracies, and arms, went 
on till after 1665, with a variety of fortune. The Duchess 
of Braganza, who became Regent, and on whose fortitude 
and judgment the success of the insurgents hung — as indeed 
her spirit and ascendancy had been the mainspring of the 
enterprise^ — employed the celebrated Schomberg as a 
general. Don John of Austria led the Spanish armies 
against Portugal. The Battle of Villa Vicosa took away 
at last the hopes of the invaders. The war lingered on. 
In 1668, Spain and Portugal negociated peace with one 
another. Was Europe acting then, in 1641, against the 
principles which ought to have directed her ? Is there 
anything in Grotius, Bynkershoek, Vattel, Von Martens, 
Wheaton, to condemn her ? It was an obvious duty upon my 
part to examine all these writers on the question of acknow- 
ledgment. But it is not a duty to inflict quotations on your 
Lordships. The references are with me here, and they will 
be at the command of any Member who desires them.§ A 



* See " History of Spain and Portugal," published by Society for 
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. 

t In the endless dissertations of Sir "W. Temple and Lord Boling- 
broke on Foreign Policy, Russia is scarcely mentioned. 

X See " Vertot on Portugal," almost a contemporary work, for an 
account of the Duchess of Braganza. 

§ See Grotius, book ii., chap. 18. Bynkershoek, "Qusestiones Publici 
Juris," book ii., chap. 3. Wheaton, vol. i., page 96. Yon Martens, 
page 79. Vattel, book iv., chap. 5, sec. 68. 



11 



shorter method will enable me to show that the authorities 
agree in holding the power to maintain its independence — 
not the close of efforts to subdue it — to be the condition 
upon which a neutral may acknowledge an insurgent. Sir 
James Mackintosh, in a celebrated speech of 1824, upon the. 
South American Republics, insists with glowing approbation 
on the case of Portugal, which I have brought under the 
notice of your Lordships. He does not question, but ap- 
plauds the conduct of the recognising Powers. He does not 
hold it up to be avoided as an error ; but, on the contrary, 
to be regarded as a brilliant lesson in his day. And your 
Lordships well know that Sir James Mackintosh was the 
disciple, the exponent, the successor, and the equal of the 
great men who have moulded public law into a science. 
You well know that what he sanctions they have sanc- 
tioned, and that when he unreservedly subscribes to 
what Europe did in 1641, Europe must have acted 
on their principle. What is it? The principle ap- 
pears to be that the hazard of reconquest is the only 
bar to acknowledgment, when such a measure is likely 
to accelerate a peace and benefit a country which ex- 
tends it. Should the insurgent yield after the acknow- 
ledgment of neutrals, their judgment is rebuked, their action 
vain, and they have given useless umbrage to the Power 
ultimately dominant. But it is not correct, according to the 
law of nations and the history of the world, to aver that the 
struggle must be over, the last army routed, the last shil- 
ling spent, the last drop of blood exhausted, by the combat- 
ants. And it is not consistent with humanity. The vocation 
of acknowledgment is rather to preserve than to destroy, 
and by diplomacy to give a quicker passage to the end, 
which the long and sanguinary road of arms would ulti- 
mately point to. When you cannot advise the older 
State to persevere, when you denounce its efforts, and 
when you prophesy its failure ; and when you cannot 



12 



recommend the younger State to yield, what can be 
more irrational or cruel than to prolong hostilities between 
them ? But by the reservation of acknowledgment you do 
prolong hostilities between them. The effort to reconquer 
has never been renounced, and scarcely ever been suspended, 
until neutrals had acknowledged the insurgent, from the 
civil war between Switzerland and Austria in the Middle 
Ages down to that which stagnates at this moment. And 
such a general result is what the plainest reason would have 
led us to anticipate. While neutrals countenance his hopes, 
is the invading Power likely to recede from them ? Can he 
proclaim, without suggestion, his defeat ? Can he embrace, 
without authority, his own humiliation? Can he assure 
bystanders he has sunk, while they by silence loudly tell 
him he may rally ? It is not therefore easy to defend the 
conduct of a neutral who indirectly calls out for battles, and 
imposes expeditions, with a foregone conclusion that they 
must be useless for their purpose. But it is said, may you 
acknowledge an insurgent destined to succeed, while hostile 
armies are encamped in portions of his territory? My 
Lords, if you may not, you should withdraw your repre- 
sentatives from any country which becomes the seat of war. 
We ought, at least, to have withdrawn our minister from 
Spain in 1823, when France, unfortunately, marched without 
resistance on its capital. In accordance, therefore, with 
experience, authorities, and reason, I submit to this House — 
you may acknowledge the insurgent as soon as no doubt 
remains upon the issue of the struggle. 

And is the issue doubtful ? The capitalists of London, 
Frankfort, Paris, Amsterdam, are not of that opinion. 
Within the last few days the Southern loan has reached the 
highest place in our market. £3,000,000 were required, 
£9,000,000 were subscribed for. The loan is based upon 
the security of cotton ; and it has been well known for a 
twelvemonth that as far as the invaders march, that security 



18 



must perish. But what is the opinion of military men upon 
the issue ? The Emperor of the French, having been brought 
up as a soldier — having given a long life to military science, 
and having recently commanded the greatest armies of the 
day at Solferino and Magenta — in the despatch of November 
last did not conceal from the Government of "Washington 
that subjugation was impossible. The Princes of the House 
of Orleans, who served with General M'Clellan, are thought 
to have inspired the excellent account of the campaign which 
appeared on October 15th in the Revue des Deux Mondes, 
and which has also tended to disperse the vision of 
re-conquest. To the same scale of judgment General 
Scott appears, by recent revelations, to contribute. And 
this, too, is remarkable. Not one military person, 
in the North is known to view re-conquest as attain- 
able. Neither General M'Clellan, Burnside, Rosencrans, 
M'Dowell, Halleck, or Buell, have ever publicly declared, 
so far as it has reached us, that the object of the Government 
they serve under is feasible. The ignominious task of 
prophesying triumph has been wisely left to the voluminous 
despatch writer, who, whatever his accomplishments or 
merits, is no more qualified to judge the issue of campaigns 
than he is to guide the movements of battalions.* But, after 
all, it may be granted in the abstract, that reconquest is 
attainable. To genius nothing is denied. The only question 
it becomes the neutral Powers to consider is, can it be 
attained by Mr. Lincoln and his colleagues ? It is by Mr. 
Lincoln and his colleagues, if at all, the South is to be 
conquered. There is not any person in their armies, such as 
Britain proudly watched in the Peninsula, able to control a 
Government behind, and overwhelm an enemy in front of 
him.f If there was, they would recall him. It is there- 



* Mr. Seward. 



t The late Duke of Wellington. 



14 



fore necessary to inquire what proof of its ability has this 
aggressive Cabinet developed. Is it in its choice of expe- 
ditions or of viceroys ? Is it in appointing, superseding, or 
replacing the commanders it must lean on ? Is it in their 
firm adherence to a principle ? At one time they were 
opposed to the invasion they have plunged into. Is it 
in their conduct about slavery ? At one time they boasted 
of their disposition to maintain it. Soon after, they desired 
the Border States to be delivered from it. After that eman- 
cipation was declared, but only in the States which were 
resisting them. The loyal region might preserve the insti- 
tution — but seceders must renounce it. It ought to flourish 
where they reign ; — but not to stand beyond the limits of 
their sovereignty. But next, a bankrupt treasury would 
buy it by an outlay equal to the public debt of our country. 
But, after all, a servile war was indispensable, and so were 
armies to enforce it. A servile war, however, was proclaimed. 
The proclamation cannot be considered as unprecedented. 
The model was before them. Lord of Nature, as he deemed 
himself, Xerxes ordered lashes to be given to the waves. 
Swelling with omnipotence, Mr. Lincoln and his colleagues 
dictate insurrection to the slaves of Alabama. Are these the 
movements of a Government by which the broken fragments 
of the Union can be welded, a mighty Continent subdued, 
8,000,000 free men braced into an unit, robbed of home, of 
honour, and of liberty ? But who are they arrayed against ? 
The House ought not, indeed, to join in the encomiums on 
the Southern President, which heat and sympathy have 
prompted. As no one was deemed happy by the ancients 
until his life had closed, no one will be stamped as great by 
you until his enterprise has triumphed. But so much may 
be hazarded of this extraordinary person that, gifted amply 
by nature, he has made the union of political and military 
excellence his object ; and that, as far as Europe has observed, 
in the midst of danger and of care such as few men have the 



15 



power to imagine, fewer to sustain, he has exhibited the 
patience and the enterprise, the ardour and the coolness, the 
heroism and urbanity, from which it generally happens that 
nations draw their birth and civil wars accept their desti- 
nation. And this is most important to remember. If we 
look back to such conjunctures we do not find an instance in 
which ability and character have yielded to the want of both, 
no matter how well sustained the latter as regards forces, 
numbers, and revenue. The Roman Commonwealth, in 
spite of territory, population, armies, was destroyed from 
wanting any mind by which the mind of Caesar could be 
balanced and encountered. Holland was lost to Spain when 
the Prince of Orange and Prince Maurice were superior to 
all the viceroys and the captains the mother country could 
oppose to them. Her South American dependencies were gone 
when she had no opponent of Bolivar. Your Lordships do 
not want to go back to the enlightened page of Davila or 
Sully, to remind you that the civil wars of France, after every 
kind of knot and of vicissitude, all closed in the pre-eminence 
of Henry IV. ; in head and heart the master of his epoch. 
The Carlists had not any match for Espartero. The Sar- 
dinians had not any equal of Radetzky. The same lesson is 
impressed on us by the unfortunate collision of Washington 
and George III. ; — of Charles I. and Cromwell. It is true, in- 
deed, that history need not repeat itself, and that events are 
neither bound by theories or precedents. But such experience 
at least may forcibly suggest to us, that had a Southern subju- 
gation belonged to the decrees of fate, an instrument more 
powerful than that of Mr. Lincoln and his colleagues would be 
seen conducing to the sentence. It is not going beyond the 
bounds of caution to allege that a new chapter will be opened 
in the annals of mankind, if on this unrivalled scene of 
grandeur and of conflict, the qualities which they regard 
with scorn are found triumphant over those which they agree 
to follow and to reverence. But, last of all, if Mr. Lincoln 



16 



and his colleagues could succeed against the leader and the 
armies which oppose them, could they succeed against their 
own consciousness — revealed to us by many signs — of 
incapacity to do so ? 

If noble Lords agree, therefore, with the financial world, 
with military men, and with the Government of Washington 
itself, that the issue is not doubtful, and if therefore Great 
Britain has the right to acknowledge Southern independence, 
why ought she to exercise it ? The first answer is : — Because 
honour calls on her to do so, and it rests on a detail which 
may be rapidly presented to your Lordships. British Consuls 
have remained during the war at Mobile, Charleston, and 
Savannah. They are there for the protection of our subjects, 
who reside by thousands on the seaboard. In times like 
these their presence is essential. Were it not for Consuls 
to identify them, the severe enlistment laws of the Con- 
federacy might at any time descend on our people ; or in 
the sudden turns of war their goods might be destroyed 
without a clue to ownership or means of compensation. 
They are also there to witness the blockade, and to report 
upon its efficacy. And these Consuls draw their exequaturs 
from the Government of Washington. They are a standing 
derogation to the Power which receives, which shelters, and 
endures them. We are not inclined to withdraw them. We 
ought, therefore, to accredit them to the insurgent who 
permits them to reside. And if we do, he is acknowledged. 
Honour forbids nations, as it does men, to run up a score of 
gratitude themselves, and to create a fund of just resent- 
ment in its object. Honour forbids nations, as it does men, 
to offer insult at the moment they are profiting by favour. 
In one sense alone do the Confederacy gain by the arrange- 
ment. We give them all the grandeur of forbearance. They 
allow our Consuls to reside, and we withhold the recognition 
which public law entitles them to ask of us. But is not 
our aspect, with regard to them, a poor one ? We deny 



17 



their rights over their territory, and yet at their hands 
receive the safety of our citizens. The Southern Congress 
is about to entertain the question of any longer tolerating 
our Consuls in this attitude. And what will be the 
situation of Great Britain, if led by-and-by to do, by interest 
and by convenience, what self-respect, and pride and justice 
dictate at this moment ? 

The neutrality we vaunt is the next consideration, which, 
if fairly viewed, would lead Great Britain to the course I 
have adverted to. The noble Lord the Secretary of State, 
in his despatch to Mr. Mason, dated August 2, has pointed 
out that the great controversy on the right to secede, so long 
and frequently debated in America, cannot be resolved by 
foreign Governments. It is not for them to decide between 
the rival theories of Webster and Calhoun. They ought 
rather to reserve their judgment, considering the balance of 
the argument and the intricacy of the circumstances, than to 
pronounce in favour of secession or against it. But by 
withholding recognition when the issue no longer seems to be 
a doubtful one, when the danger of recon quest is not the 
restraining fact, Great Britain does pronounce against the 
title to secede, does stamp the Southern movement as illegal, 
does therefore part with the neutrality which orders silence 
on that question. On what other ground is she refusing to 
acknowledge ? And let your Lordships mark that by 
acknowledgment you do not for a moment stamp with 
your authority the claims of the insurgent — you give no 
verdict in his favour. If you did, the history of the world 
would have to be re-written. If you did, this country would 
never have been able to acknowledge the E evolutionary 
Government of France in February, 1848, which derived its 
short-lived power from neither throne, nor law, nor parlia- 
ment, nor people — flung up by the delirium of Paris to sink 
at once with its repose, and no more to be regarded as the 
legalruleisof the country than the men in livery who cross the 

B 



18 



stage to take away the furniture, between two acts of an 
eventful drama which absorbs us, can be mistaken for the 
heroes of the scene or owners of the theatre. Acknowledg- 
ment is not a tribute, therefore, to the rights of the insurgent. 
But when the hazard of reconquest is dismissed, it is a 
tribute to the rights of the invader to withhold it. 
We are now declaring on the question of a title to 
secede, on which the noble Lord himself, on which neutrality, 
forbids us to be umpires. But even if it did not, the Con- 
federacy, as Mr. Davis, in his recent message, has perspicu- 
ously explained, have suffered wrongs — although not meant 
to injure — from Great Britain. Our Government, however 
conscientiously, held back the Emperor of the French from 
a proposal which might have eminently served them. With 
the best intentions and designs, they refused to allow the 
despatch of Mr. Mason, on acknowledgment in August, 1862, 
for over six months, to reach the eye and judgment of the 
country. By denying our harbours to both sides when both 
might have had access to them — no doubt from a laudable 
desire of tranquillity — it has compelled the Southerners to 
burn their prizes on the waters, has thus destroyed their 
chance of raising privateers, and vastly limited their powers 
of self-defence against the country which invades them. 
After inducing the Confederacy, by a transaction which I 
described a year ago, to pledge itself to the observance of 
certain rules laid down at Paris in 1856, the British Govern- 
ment has not been ready to maintain them on the vital point 
that blockades must be effective to be binding. But illus- 
trations of the kind may be dismissed. Partiality to the 
United States has been avowed in a despatch of March 27, 
1862, from the noble Lord to Mr. Adams, and which the 
Government of Washington have brought before the world 
in page 62 of the volume they have recently distributed. 
In resisting the extortionate demands which Mr. Adams had 
addressed to him, and which, indeed, he manfully exposes, 



19 



the noble Lord, as a set-off to his austerity, declares that 
allowance has been made for the difficulties which the 
United States had to contend with in the war, and that 
public law has been liberally interpreted in their favour. 
The book is here, if noble Lords desire to refer to it. 
Allowance has been made for the difficulties of the United 
States in a war which both humanity and policy forbad, 
and which their own aggressive faithlessness created. 
Public law has been interpreted, and liberally, in favour of 
a Government which supports the infamous M'Neil ; lays 
waste the houses of distinguished adversaries in Virginia ; 
which ruins havens in Savannah and in Charleston ; which 
is ready to let loose 4,000,000 negroes on their compulsory 
owners, and to renew from sea to sea the horrors and the 
crimes of St. Domingo. But let it be so. I did not 
come here to impugn the decisions of the noble 
Lord. He is not called upon to vindicate them. 
I mention these unfavourable actions to the South, without 
a view to censure of the Government. The only inference I 
draw is, that, if neutrality directs us, they require an instant 
course of reparation and of balance. Acknowledgment is the 
only form in which Great Britain can propose, or in which 
the injured Power is willing to accept it. 

But 1 will not pursue an argument, sufficient as it stands, 
and go on to the next consideration, which demands (and 
loudly) such a measure. It is our own security in Canada. 
A noble Earl who gained his laurels in the East,* well 
pointed out to us last Session, that whenever the war closed 
Canada would be endangered. If victorious, the Northern 
States might attack it in the drunkenness of pride ; if 
defeated, in the bitterness of failure. Some men, out of 
doors have been so infatuated as to hold that by carefully 
abstaining from anything which gives umbrage to the 



* The Earl of F.llenborough. 
b2 



United States, we should defend it. As if aggressive Powers 
had ever been restrained, by wanting pretexts, from the wars 
they were inclined to. The security of Canada is quickly 
seen by your Lordships to reside in one circumstance alone 
— the danger of attacking it. That danger will at least 
be greater when the Southern Power is friendly to Great 
Britain than when it is estranged, inasmuch as the aggressive 
state will then have to contemplate the chance of an attack 
upon his rear, as well as the bombardment of his cities and 
destruction of his commerce. No doubt, Canada is safe 
while the civil war continues ; but we are neither able nor 
entitled to prolong it for her safety. The civil war may close 
after the acknowledgment of Southern independence by the 
Emperor, although Great Britain has not shared his mani- 
festo. We may not be able much longer to keep back the 
virtue and humanity, as well as all the interests, the fears, 
and wants which tend to force the measure upon Europe. 
From the moment separation was inevitable, no statesman 
could be blind to our want of an ally on the other side of 
the Atlantic. The United States can never possibly become 
one, not only because they are embittered, or because our 
interests are clashing, or because our institutions are 
repugnant, or because a rivalry is forced upon us in 
manufactures, and in ships, but because no alliance has 
ever yet occurred between the mother country and the 
Power who had violently broken from it. The friendly 
disposition of the South is therefore necessary to us. It is 
attainable. And if we wantonly forego it ; if we allow the 
war to close before we have acknowledged, both the 
separated Powers being irrevocably hostile to us, we may be 
forced, now to guard Canada from one, now the West Indies 
from the other. Our diplomatists, moreover, would have no 
influence or voice in the Confederacy, whether they attempted 
to soften the resentments which the war had left behind 
it, to gain legitimate advantages in trade, to deprecate 



21 



aggressive views, or to improve the situation of the negro. 
But on this point noble Lords who have been our representa- 
tives abroad have the materials of thinking far more strongly 
than myself in the direction I have pointed to. 

Dismissing policy, I need touch but briefly on the 
moral obligation to acknowledge, because, on grounds 
already stated, it applies generally to the case of neutrals 
and insurgents, when the hazard of reconquest is exhausted. 
It arises from the circumstance adverted to before, that in the 
civil wars of Europe, since the time of Charles V. (and to 
these may be added that of the Swiss Cantons and the House 
of Austria in the Middle Ages), the acknowledgment of 
neutrals has preceded the conclusion of hostilities ; and 
while that preface is withheld, that close is not to be anti- 
cipated. It is only requisite to glance at the special circum- 
stances which enhance an abstract duty as regards Great 
Britain and the war which is before us. The first and most 
striking is the Lancashire distress, which is not likely to pass 
off until cotton falls in price, and rise in abundance. And 
that can hardly be expected to occur until the war is over. 
No man, conversant with political economy, supposes that 
cotton crops will start into existence in other portions of the 
world, while an avalanche of 4,000,000 bales impends upon 
the market from America. But that it does so, our Consuls 
in the South, Mr Bunch and Mr. Molyneux, have recently 
informed us in public letters, known to all the trading world. 
The impression that the price will be depressed during the 
existence of the war is strengthened by what has fallen from 
Mr. Bazley, Mr. Bright, Mr. Mangles, and Mr. Laing, 
the highest practical authorities, who have all addressed 
the public on the topic. Another special circumstance is, 
that the present war — waged between descendants of 
Great Britain — appears to be unequalled in the records of 
the annalist, or the conceptions of the poet, for the masses 
exposed to death, the area through which the carnage is 



22 



extended, the amount of families divided and bereaved, the 
bitter and relentless passions which exasperate the combatants- 
Beyond this, the Government of Washington are more 
incapable of making peace spontaneously than any other 
which has ever grappled with insurgents, considering the 
pledges they have made, the debts they have incurred, the 
hosts they have annihilated. As well might you require a 
man to perform a useful amputation on himself against the 
influence of others, as expect that Mr. Lincoln and his col- 
leagues can terminate the war against the South, whilst 
Europe still excludes it from the family of nations. The 
duty to give the strife a possibility of closing, is heightened 
by the fact that they appear to be pursuing it in the midst of 
well-founded despair, and under a necessity which only 
neutrals can annihilate. That they are doing so will appear 
to those who watch the tone of Mr. Greely in The New York 
Tribune, who observe the desperate expedient of enlisting 
negro regiments, and who reflect that "West Virginia would 
be useless as a State unless the two belligerents were 
separated. But let any one recall the past, and reason for a 
moment on this question. Would Mr. Lincoln and his 
colleagues have embarked upon the war had they foreseen 
the tenor of its history? If, on the eve of crossing the 
Potomac, a higher Power had revealed to them the panorama 
of disaster and disgrace which they were doomed to bring 
upon their country ; the panic of Bull Bun ; the scared and 
broken columns falling into Washington ; the long and dreary 
autumn of paralysis which followed ; the victories which took 
away the hope of any Southern party for the Union, and 
which as loudly as defeats proclaimed the madness of their 
enterprise; the cotton blazing on the Mississipi as they 
reached it ; the capture of New Orleans without a practical 
result beyond the indignation of the world at the revolting 
tyranny which held it ; had they caught a glimpse of the 
engagements which drove General M'Clellan to his gunboats 




23 

— the scions of a Royal house partaking his confusion — and 
seen the tide of war rolled back upon their territory; and then 
another host sent out to dissolve itself, to put an end to the 
anxiety of Richmond, and to perform the tragedy of Frede- 
ricksburg ; and, last of all, had they been able to forecast, with 
eighteen vessels hot in their pursuit, the Southern cruisers 
roaming on the sea triumphant and implacable ; — would 
they have been deaf to the commissioners in the spring of 
1861 ? would they have scorned a peace? would they have 
sent their expedition to Fort Sumter? would they have 
trampled on the law to plunge into hostilities ? Then, are 
they not reluctantly pursuing them without a choice, till 
neutrals have acknowledged the insurgent ? Shall Europe 
any longer chain them to the effort ? Or, rather, when the 
Emperor desires to release, ought we to keep them inert 
and helpless victims on the lake of fire their blunders have 
created ? 

My Lords, these grand considerations of honour, of 
neutrality, of policy, and duty, would lead the people of 
the country to require an acknowledgment of Southern inde- 
pendence, were it not for the delusions as to slavery, which 
for a month or two, have been promoted, and which, unless 
I am enabled to confront, I should seem, perhaps, to 
have avoided. To confront, is to expose them. And the 
shortest method which occurs to me, is at once to drive 
these puny agitators to an issue. They have deceived the 
working classes of the country by confounding questions 
about slavery, which ought not to be discussed, with the only 
one which it behoves the British public to consider. We may 
go on eternally debating whether the desire to extend and 
to preserve it was at the bottom of secession ; whether the 
desire to abridge or to eradicate it was at the bottom of in- 
vasion. These points, involving the recesses of the human 
heart, are little known even in America. History may 
discuss. Omniscience only can determine them. And it is 



24 



idle mockery to force them on a mass of operatives, divided 
by 3,000 miles from any clue to the inquiry. The legiti- 
mate, the only issue is (and they will not venture to deny 
it), whether separation or reconquest will be most con- 
ducive to the welfare of the negro; the prosperity of 
Africa, and the attainment of the objects which have long 
engaged the Buxtons, and the Wilberforces, and other 
admirable men who scorn to be connected with this dimi- 
nutive machinery for prolonging war on one side of the 
ocean, by spreading fiction on the other. We should therefore 
trace — and it is quickly done — the natural results of the alter- 
natives. In the event of separation there will no longer be the 
possibility of extending negro bondage into territories in 
which it does not now exist. Already it is settled in New 
Mexico. And no boundary you can well conceive will give 
the Southern States uncultivated land beyond that Northern 
limit. In the event of separation, the North will not return 
the negro fugitives who cross over its border. And the 
planter must retain them, not by law and terror, but by 
judgment and humanity. There will be a premium on 
benevolence, a penalty on inattention and injustice, which 
has not heretofore existed. Slaves will be contented, or 
escape. Under the Union they found a prison in a continent. 
In the event of separation, the whole question of black 
labour may be impartially considered by the Southerners. 
Whereas, during the last decade, the violence of Northern 
Abolitionists had fixed the system, had inflamed into a 
point of honour, or a passion, the opinions against which 
they were crusaders. In what manner would reconquest 
operate upon the negro ? A servile war would be its melan- 
choly preface, in which murder confronts the slave, and 
rapine the proprietor. In such a conflict, many blacks 
must be exterminated, and nearly all the higher classes 
driven from the country. The dismantled houses and the 
confiscated fields become the property of Northerners. The 



25 



conquerors at once discover that the soil is worthless unless 
the labour of the black may be applied to it. The negroes 
who survive, demoralised and scattered, will not be all of 
them recaptured ; and if they were, would be inadequate in 
number to the purpose. How are the new proprietors, 
desiring wealth and jealous of sterility, to find the labour 
which is wanting to them 1 Africa is open. Africa contains 
the millions they are seeking. The flag of the United States 
before now has unfortunately been a shelter to the slave 
trade. The want of the United States may prove its resur- 
rection in America. And this, too, is unanswerable. During 
the last few years, while the Union went on undivided, the 
efforts of Great Britain on the subject were defeated. As 
soon as ever the civil war divided it, the Government of 
Washington conceded the right of search ; while their organs 
insolently told us that it would be withdrawn as soon as 
Southern subjugation was accomplished. After this, what 
man can be so mad as to declare that the friends of Africa 
and of her race ought to concur with the invaders and 
advance pleas in their behalf, which they themselves have 
not the forehead to resort to ? 

The only further sentiment which, in the event of other 
neutrals being prepared, might indispose the country to 
acknowledgment, is a lingering idea that the cause of freedom 
is involved in the retention of the Union. It is just, there- 
fore, to inquire for whose advantage it would come again into 
existence. We have seen it would not be for that of Africa 
or the negro. It could not be for that of the seceders, as the 
miseries of New Orleans have explained, where that rule has 
been established, and those terrors have been felt, which 
would then apply to all the cities of their territory. Who 
says they ought not to perish rather than submit to a yoke 
more bitter and degrading than was ever known yet in 
Warsaw or in Venice ? But language shrinks from such a 
topic. Then, would it be restored for the advantage of the 



26 



North ? At least they can only gain their object, if it is 
attainable, through the medium of a general who, when he 
had attained it, must rank among the highest conquerors — 
with Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon. Would such a 
character be likely to resign his arms to Mr. Lincoln and his 
colleagues ? What temptation could he have to conduct so 
derogatory and to sacrifice so thankless ? It was thought by 
many that General M'Clellan, at the time of his dismissal, 
might have turned his regiments on the capital with safety. 
And there were not wanting those who loudly censured his 
forbearance. In this war there has been no fact more preg- 
nant and instructive than the disposition, in spite of his 
reverses, to exalt him. For many months a halo has sur- 
rounded his inaction. Would the army, then, refuse to 
follow one who had performed marvels instead of shrinking 
before obstacles ; who had given them the plunder of the 
south instead of leading them through hardships and priva- 
tions to their starting-point ; who had won affection, not by 
his designs and his retreats, but by his actions - and his 
progress ; whose title rested on the fact, not that Baltimore 
was safe, but that Montgomery had fallen. A tide of argu- 
ments would rush into the mind of such a general, to dissuade 
him from surrendering his power to institutions so discredited, 
so trampled on, and so remote from those which Washington 
bequeathed, as he would find subsisting in his country, 
But the impulse from within would be exceeded by 
the pressure from without. In a sickened and disor- 
ganised society, which only pants for rule, he would not 
choose but to be coerced into the part of a dictator. And is 
it for a despotism that the people of the North are pouring 
out their blood, and tarnishing their glory ? Already it 
exists. It had its birth in war, and it would take its immor- 
tality from conquest. Then, would the Union be restored 
for the advantage of the world ? What country would be 
safer ? Would Brazil ? What country would be freer ? 



27 

Would Poland gain, when the only patron of the Czar 
recovered his original dimensions ? At first, indeed — for 
facts will ever guide the calculation of your Lordships — the 
necessity of Southern garrisons might tend to keep them in 
repose. But in a few years — they do not labour to conceal it 
from us — a power more rapacious, more unprincipled, more 
arrogant, more selfish and encroaching, would arise than has 
ever yet increased the outlay, multiplied the fears, and com- 
promised the general tranquillity of Europe. And on this 
overgrown, on this portentous form of tyranny and egotism, 
many countries would depend for the material of that 
important industry which languishes at present. 

My Lords, the latter point might be explained by statistics 
I have with me.* But it will hardly be impugned, and it is 
more important to remind you, that not much more than five 
years have elapsed since France and Great Britain were 
united to withstand a Power which overshadowed and 
assailed the general security of nations. To gain their 
object, it was requisite to interrupt a peace of forty years, 
and squander noble lives upon the trenches and the battle- 
field. In order now to reach equivalent results and parallel 
advantages, they are required not to lavish, but to save; 
not to arm battalions, but disperse them ; not to open 
conflict in the world, but snatch an hemisphere from misery. 
What in Russia wanted toil, outlay, unmeasured risks, and 
endless combinations, for ought we know may be accom- 
plished by a fiat in America. And the presence of a 
noble Duke upon the bench,f might have suggested to 
me that there are some inherent evils in the partnership of 
arms which have not any place in the alliance of diplomacy. 
The initiative will belong to France. But if it did not, should 



* Showing the conditions upon which it would alone be possible to 
replace the cotton of America in other portions of the world, 
t The Duke of Newcastle. 



28 



Great Britain be ashamed of it ? Whoever contemplates 
habitually her place or aspect on the globe, will sometimes 
think that it imposes a double task on her career ; 
to urge on civilisation from its Eastern cradle to 
its Western home, and also as the firm and watching outpost 
of the sea, to stand between the older States and the evils 
which the other side of the Atlantic may occasionally threaten. 
Long has she fulfilled the first, and nobly may she now 
sustain the second part of the vocation which belongs to her. 
And if it suits the dignity of empire to compass large results 
by trifling exertions — instead of wasting giant means upon 
invisible achievements — the day will be a proud one, when, 
in a voice which Europe has re-echoed, her message rolls 
over the waters ; to guard the freedom of the Old World, and 
limit, if not arrest, the sorrows of the New. But whether 
we resolve to lead or hesitate to follow, whether we retard, 
or join, or suffer isolation from the Continent, I shall be 
indebted to your Lordships for permitting me to show 
to-night that the Neutral Powers have a sacred title to 
acknowledge the Confederacy, and that — according to the 
only lights their rulers are possessed of — until that title is 
asserted, the war can never end. 



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